literal vs implied meaning

Post Reply New Topic

This is one area of Asperger's I've never understood. Iv'e never had any problem with figures of speech, and I'm always puzzled by other Aspies stories about their misunderstandings. It's just a symptom of AS I don't have, I suppose.

Same here. I've never mistakened a figure of speech for being literal. I've always understood dry humour and sarcasm too.

I never understood sarcasm (lol). I only understand figures of speech I hear on a daily basis. If I don't hear it at least once a week, I'll take it literally. I really enjoy sarcasm. I seem to have trouble understanding when other people are being sarcastic though.

That's just like me. Such literal visualizations can be sometimes quite funny and good basis for jokes. If I happen not to know the expression, I get confused, of course. I remember when I first heard "piece of cake" (meaning "easy"), and was puzzled why the discussion suddenly veered towards bakery products. Nowadays I use "piece of cake" quite often - it's yummy!

As for being literal, here is a common conversation between me and my girlfriend Hilary:

Hilary: "I haven't seen Mrs. X for a million years!"
Me: "This does not sound possible. Both you and Mrs. X would need to be more than 1 million years old, which is unlikely."
Hilary: "Don't be so literal!"

I'm a very visual thinker; images always come into my head when I hear or read a figure of speech that's new to me... and sometimes ones I already know that are just plain funny to visualize (i.e., raining cats and dogs). Most of the time, however, I do get what people are saying as far as sarcasm and figures of speech, even with the visualizations (I just have to think a little). But if I'm being instructed to do something, they need to explain it to me, usually more than once.

I don't have a problem understanding it, either. sometimes I would pretend to take things literally just to be a smart arse.

I'm somewhat dry myself when it comes to humour. Sarcasm is easily understandable but I loathe it.

I don’t recall having much of a problem taking speech literally as a child. When I did, it was simply to be a smart arse, as hale_bopp said. I remember playing music too loud and my father would come in the room and say, “tone it down, now!” So I would turn the “tone” knob on my stereo all the way down.

There have been times as an adult where I’ve taken something literally that wasn’t intended to be. This usually happens when an unfamiliar person is using sarcasm. With familiar people, I have no problem using sarcasm or being talked to sarcastically.

Jokes are a different thing. I understand most jokes, but never find them humorous.

I am a very literal person too. Last year in my cooking class, the teacher asked me to get a bowl of mayonaise. I got a LARGE bowl almost a gallon. the teacher meant a small, cat food size bowl. I felt like an idiot.

I do, at least if they're really funny.

My problem with humour is that I always start reacting too soon. Just like one of Pavlov's dogs, I've become accustomed to jokes having a funny ending and therefore start laughing in anticipation. (Most of my social interaction is either Pavlovian or strictly rule-based.)

My response to jokes would probably be considered rude. I’ll patiently listen all the to the punch line, then say something like, “that’s nice” and then walk away or return to whatever I was doing. I never remember jokes and can’t recite them for others.

There isn’t very much that can make me laugh out loud. Off the top of my head, I can only think of a few things. Monty Python, the John Bean prank call tapes, and Family Guy are all that comes to mind. Modern comedic movies never make me laugh and are very tiresome to view.

However, I do laugh all the time. I have debilitating laugh attacks that are difficult to control. Thoughts, silly video clips I see in my mind, and ridiculous internal dialogues trigger my laugher. Of course, this material isn’t easy to share and no one else finds my internal humor funny. I should write this stuff down, as most of it disappears. There are things that caused me to laugh as a child that still make me laugh, but even as a child, I mostly laughed at my own behavior, both external and internal.

Same here. I have a strange sense of humor. To me, a canoe ringing someone's door bell is hilarious, but most people I know think that it's stupid. One of my friends at school laughs at the stuff I say, though. Especially about the chocolate chip cookie spinning in a glass of orange juice.

My friends know me for saying laughable things. I can't think of any, but I always have some backwards view of whatever it is we're talking about.

Hah. That's wonderful.

I can pretty much echo what everyone else has said. With a number of expressions, it didn't dawn on me that they were figurative until I heard them used a few times, but I figured it out soon afterward. In a few cases, I literally had to ask what the phrase meant, because I couldn't come up with the vaguest idea of what the expression stood for, but in most cases I can usually work it out by myself.

And even when I do know that a saying is figurative, I still get the mental image of the phrase taken literally, like the 'raining cats and dogs' example that's been mentioned way too many times already.

Last edited by nina on 21 Sep 2005, 11:48 am, edited 2 times in total.

Ahh dear Scoots, lucky your mum saw you! I got a bit confused too by just how lake michigan is in your yard! I think at first I thought that you meant that you had a low backyard prone to flooding. Then it was that you lived in Michigan and had a small dam in your yard. Then I sort of had the lake starting at the end of your yard, only with a fence going half way through the lake (so you knew it was still your back yard of course!). Then I just got confused and gave up. And I thought I didn't have problems with literal stuff!